Chapter 32
After tea, Mam suggested we make the most of the beautiful evening by taking a bottle of wine into the front garden, but she only stayed for one glass before saying her book was calling and she’d go back inside to keep Clemmie company.
‘Have you heard anything from Erica or Ned recently?’ I asked Jude when Mam had gone.
Erica and Ned had shared a drunken kiss on mine and Laurie’s wedding day and it had set off unexpected fireworks.
They married three years later but, after seventeen years of marriage, Erica told him she was leaving him.
She’d been having an affair with a mutual friend of theirs for the past three years and was pregnant with his baby so they’d decided to leave their respective spouses and start over together.
I’d been shocked by the affair – not something I’d ever have expected Erica to do – and heartbroken for Ned.
Nobody deserved to be treated like that and especially not someone as lovely as him.
I hadn’t wanted to choose sides when I was so close to them both, but it was hard not to be on Ned’s.
I’d reached out to Erica and, while she’d responded to my messages, she’d repeatedly turned down invitations to catch up for a proper chat.
‘Nothing from Erica since shortly after the split,’ Jude said, ‘but Ned rang last night. He said to pass on his love to you and he’s looking forward to his invite once you’re settled.’
‘Aw, bless him. It’s ages since I’ve seen him. How’s he doing?’
‘He’s in a good place. Can you believe it’s been two years? He’s weighing up some big life decisions at the moment. He’s a bit bored at work so he’s thinking it might be time to change job and leave London.’
‘Really? I thought he loved the bright lights, big city lifestyle.’
‘He did but he’s realised that was more Erica’s thing. He’d rather go on a walk to a country pub than be in a crowded bar. Plus, twenty-five years of commuting is going to zap anyone’s energy. I certainly couldn’t have done it.’
‘Is he thinking of a career change too?’
Jude shook her head. ‘Sticking with project management – just a move away from the tech sector.’
‘Any location in mind?’
‘Could be anywhere. With them not having kids, he has no ties, so the world’s his oyster.’
‘I hope he doesn’t go abroad. I don’t see him enough as it is.’
‘Same here.’
I couldn’t miss Jude’s wistful tone and expression. ‘Why don’t you tell him how you feel?’ I asked gently.
‘I can’t. Every time I tell myself I’ve got nothing to lose, I picture his face that morning.’
Jude had developed a thing for Ned towards the end of our second year at university but she wouldn’t say anything for fear of ruining their friendship and messing up the group dynamics.
I’d reminded her that Laurie and me being a couple hadn’t ruined the dynamics but she’d been convinced that two couples would.
She’d made me promise not to tell any of the others or to meddle.
I respected that, although it didn’t stop me giving her the occasional nudge of encouragement.
On a couple of occasions after graduating, she’d told me she was going to say something to Ned, but lost her nerve when the moment came.
On my wedding day, she decided that four years was more than enough to be in love from afar and she plucked up the courage to share her feelings, only to catch Ned and Erica kissing.
It was a match that none of us had seen coming – not even the couple themselves. Jude had been in emotional turmoil about it. On the one hand, she was devastated for herself but, on the other, she was delighted that two of her closest friends had found love.
Three years later, as Erica and Ned’s wedding day drew to a close, Jude and I had wandered into the grounds of the venue and sat on a pair of swings suspended from the branch of a giant oak tree, sipping on glasses of Baileys.
‘What happens now?’ I’d asked her.
‘I put my feelings for Ned in a box marked what’s the worst thing that could have happened? I’ll file it away, try to move on with my life and chalk this up as a major learning experience that, if you want something, you have to go for it. Don’t let the worst-case scenario stop you.’
That became Jude’s mantra for life. After I introduced her to Hugo and they hit it off, she saw the potential for a different life and embraced it wholeheartedly.
A new relationship with an older divorcee, relocation to Twyford and a career change from teaching to working at an equestrian centre could have been disastrous but Jude had refused to dwell on what could go wrong.
Part of the reason their marriage ended was the acceptance that they were both still in love with other people – Hugo with his ex-wife and Jude with Ned.
After the divorce was finalised, Jude resolved not to get involved again until she could say for certain that she was over Ned.
If he’d been some ex she never saw again, she might have stood a chance, but Ned and Erica were part of our friendship group and we saw them regularly.
Jude would never have let her feelings towards Ned show while he was with Erica. But then they split up.
A few months later, he was in Reading for a business meeting.
When it finished early, he messaged Jude and me asking if there was any chance we were free for lunch.
We were both at work but, with my encouragement, Jude took some flex hours to meet him.
She’d had no intention of sharing her feelings – she just wanted to be there for a good friend going through a tough time – but the plan didn’t match the reality.
‘We shared a bottle of wine over lunch which led to another and another,’ she told me the following morning.
‘We were pretty smashed when we headed for the train station.
Suddenly he got melancholy, questioning what was wrong with him.
I told him there was nothing wrong, that he was amazing and that Erica clearly had no idea how lucky she was to have him.
He said I was just saying that because I was his friend and I told him I was saying it because it was true.
Next minute, we were kissing, right in the middle of the street. Some kids shouted get a room so we did.
‘I’d dreamed of that moment so often and everything about that evening was better than I’d ever imagined.
I know we were both really drunk but I remember every second.
But when we woke up this morning, I saw the shocked look on his face when he saw me in the bed beside him.
It was so obvious he had major regrets so I got in there first – made a joke about how we’d never done that before and how he wasn’t to panic because it’d never happen again and we could continue as friends as though nothing had happened.
I’d already been acting like I only saw him as a friend since I was twenty, so it wasn’t hard to convince him that morning. ’
And now, sitting in the front garden at Hazelwick Farm twenty-one months later, I made the same point to Jude that I’d made that morning.
‘But what if he didn’t regret it? What if he just needed a moment to gather his bearings?’
Jude shook her head. ‘Believe me, he regretted it but we’ve been fine since. Still great mates. It’s obviously how it’s meant to be between us. Except, if it’s possible, I love him even more now. Hopeless case.’
‘You’re not a hopeless case. You’re a woman in love and, I have to say, you’ve got impeccable taste. For what it’s worth, I think you and Ned are far more suited to each other than Erica and Ned ever were.’
At university, it had quickly become apparent that Erica liked to get her own way.
One of us would always call her out on it, she’d take the feedback with good humour and all would be well.
But during their marriage, I’d seen her become steadily more manipulative of Ned, clearly taking advantage of his easy-going nature to get what she wanted all the time.
Their relationship had always felt very one-sided whereas I was certain that Jude and Ned together would be a true partnership.
‘I agree,’ Jude said, ‘but it isn’t meant to be.’
‘When you said just now that Ned was looking forward to visiting, I was going to suggest inviting him while you’re here so the three of us can have a good old catch-up but I’m guessing you’d rather I didn’t.’
‘Yeah, no, let’s not do that. Best wait till I’ve left before you roll out the red carpet for him.’
I placed my hand over hers. ‘I’m sorry you and Ned aren’t you and Ned. I think you should be. I’m here any time you want to talk more about it.’
‘Thank you.’
I sipped on my drink, feeling nostalgic for the old days when the six of us were inseparable.
‘Do you remember sitting on the grass at the graduation ball and Erica asking where we saw ourselves in twenty years’ time?’ I said. ‘Everyone expected to be happily married with kids and look at us now – one tragically gone and the rest of us divorcees with only two children between us.’
Jude shrugged. ‘Life rarely works out how we plan it but often what happens instead is even better. Have to confess I’m finding it a little tedious waiting for the even better part but I still believe it’s out there.’
I raised my glass to her. ‘Here’s to even better being within reach.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ she said, smiling as she clinked her glass against mine before we both sipped on our drinks.
‘We’ll work out what your even better is while you’re here. I’m so excited about us working together again and…’ I tailed off as I spotted Caleb and Scampi running through the farmyard.
Jude raised her eyebrows at me questioningly.
‘Don’t turn round but Caleb is running towards us.’
Without missing a beat, Jude grabbed the empty bottle of wine. ‘Best get another one of these, hadn’t I?’
‘Jude! Don’t say anything to him!’
But she was already crossing the lawn, her exit timed perfectly as Caleb rounded the corner.
He stopped and they exchanged a few words, although I couldn’t hear anything.
He turned and glanced in my direction and raised his hand in a wave, smiling at me.
I gave him a half wave before he focused back on Jude.
Moments later, he and Scampi ran up the gentle incline towards Peartree Cottage and Jude went inside the farmhouse.
‘What did you say to him?’ I demanded when she returned with a second bottle of wine.
‘Nothing embarrassing so don’t panic. I commented on it being a nice evening for a run and told him I was your bestie from university and staying for a couple of weeks. He told me his name, introduced his gorgeous dog, and that was it. But he’s lush. Good choice there.’
‘I haven’t chosen him.’
‘Your blazing cheeks would suggest otherwise.’
I raised my hands to my cheeks, grateful she couldn’t hear my pounding heart too.
Jude opened the fresh bottle and topped up our glasses, not that I’d made much progress on mine since the last top-up.
The evening had turned a little chilly so we took our drinks into the kitchen shortly after.
The conversation turned to the plans Mam and I had for opening day on Wednesday and what we needed to do over the next two days to prepare, but Jude didn’t fool me with her business focus.
She was thinking about Ned and what could – and in my opinion should – have been.
My teenaged promise not to meddle still stood, but I longed to.
I wanted to get straight on the phone to invite Ned over, sit the pair of them down and point out what a great couple they’d make.
They were both single and at a career and location crossroads.
Could there ever be a better moment for taking some time out to think about the future and whether they could navigate it together?
Jude and Ned had always had an incredibly close bond – perhaps even closer than the one I’d had with Laurie – and, no matter what Jude said, I was convinced Ned wouldn’t have woken up that morning full of regret. He wasn’t like that.